Details of case
An Australian who lost AUS$400,000 ($271,000) in just 24 hours gambling online has lost his fight to get this money back. The man – whose identity cannot be publicized – made a complaint to the Northern Territory Racing Commission regarding this issue.
He said that a medical reaction led him to place bets of ten times more than his normal average with the online sports betting platform Ladbrokes. These bets were placed on July 1 and 2, 2018.
Speaking to the commission, he said: “[It was an] extreme medical reaction to prescription [medicine] and [I] was gambling while incoherent and unable to control any inhibitions or limits due to the prescribed medication, along with a severe head injury from approximately four years ago.”
The doctor treating the man gave the commission documentation confirming these claims. As per this communication, the doctor said that he had doubled the dose of the patient’s medication after he hurt his back on a camping trip.
Account analyzed by commission
The commission’s investigations revealed that the man had won over AUS$3.2m ($2.17m) from Ladbrokes since creating his account on the platform in 2014. Therefore, the commission concluded that he is an experienced gambler, having won significant sums from Ladbrokes on numerous occasions.
Ladbrokes did check in with the man when he drastically increased his monthly deposits back in 2017.
Findings of the report
The commission’s report on the case found that Ladbrokes complied fully with the Northern Territory Code of Practice of Responsible Gambling. The company successfully noticed the red flags on the account and acted as required. They checked that the man was betting and depositing within his limits, which he confirmed.
The commission concludes that the man in question was “responsible for his own betting activity.” There is always an inherent risk of losing money when gambling and there is no avoiding it. They also dismissed the idea that the reason the man made these losses was due to his use of prescription drugs.?
The Commission concludes that the man in question was “responsible for his own betting activity.”
As per the commission’s report, there is no way Ladbrokes could or should be in a position to identify that a change in the betting activity of a client is down to a bad reaction to a change in medication.
They went on to say that they believed the complainant was suffering from gamblers remorse at a time when he was betting and losing significant sums. The complaint subsequently was met with dismissal and the man’s Ladbrokes account suspended.